The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0087/00876.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 35KB | 532 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00876}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Hallam, Henry}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{castile
alfonso
aragon
moors
footnote
century
spain
ferdinand
et
kingdom}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book IV: The History Of Spain To The Conquest Of Granada
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part I

     Kingdom of the Visigoths - Conquest of Spain by the Moors - Gradual
Revival of the Spanish Nation - Kingdoms of Leon, Aragon, Navarre, and
Castile, successively formed - Chartered Towns of Castile - Military Orders -
Conquest of Ferdinand III. and James of Aragon - Causes of the Delay in
expelling the Moors - History of Castile continued - Character of the
Government - Peter the Cruel - House of Trastamare - John II. - Henry IV. -
Constitution of Castile - National Assemblies or Cortes - their constituent
Parts - Right of Taxation - Legislation - Privy Council of Castile - Laws for
the Protection of Liberty - Imperfections of the Constitution - Aragon - its
History in the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries - disputed Succession -
Constitution of Aragon - Free Spirit of its Aristocracy - Privilege of Union -
Powers of the Justiza - Legal Securities - Illustrations - other
Constitutional Laws - Valencia and Catalonia - Union of two Crowns by the
Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella - Conquest of Granada.

     The history of Spain during the middle ages ought to commence with the
dynasty of the Visigoths; a nation among the first that assaulted and
overthrew the Roman Empire, and whose establishment preceded by nearly half a
century the invasion of Clovis.  Vanquished by that conqueror in the battle of
Poitiers, the Gothic monarchs lost their extensive dominions in Gaul, and
transferred their residence from Toulouse to Toledo.  But I will not detain
the reader by naming one sovereign of that obscure race.  It may suffice to
mention that the Visigothic monarchy differed in several respects from that of
the Franks during the same period.  The crown was less hereditary, or at least
the regular succession was more frequently disturbed.  The prelates had a
still more commanding influence in temporal government.  The distinction of
Romans and barbarians was less marked, the laws more uniform, and approaching
nearly to the imperial code.  The power of the sovereign was perhaps more
limited by an aristocratical council than in France, but it never yielded to
the dangerous influence of mayors of the palace.  Civil wars and disputed
successions were very frequent, but the integrity of the kingdom was not
violated by the custom of partition.

     Spain, after remaining for nearly three centuries in the possession of
the Visigoths, fell under the yoke of the Saracens in 712.  The fervid and
irresistible enthusiasm which distinguished the youthful period of Mohammedism
might sufficiently account for this conquest, even if we could not assign
additional causes - the factions which divided the Goths, the resentment of
disappointed pretenders to the throne, the provocations, as has been generally
believed, of Count Julian, and the temerity that risked the fate of an empire
on the chances of a single battle. ^a It is more surprising that a remnant of
this ancient monarchy should not only have preserved its national liberty and
name in the northern mountains, but waged for some centuries a successful, and
generally an offensive warfare against the conquerors, till the balance was
completely turned in its favor, and the Moors were compelled to maintain
almost as obstinate and protracted a contest for a small portion of the
peninsula.  But the Arabian monarchs of Cordova found in their success and
imagined security a pretext for indolence; even in the cultivation of science
and contemplation of the magnificent architecture of their mosques and palaces
they forgot their poor but daring enemies in the Asturias; while, according to
the nature of despotism, the fruits of wisdom or bravery in one generation
were lost in the follies and effeminacy of the next.  Their kingdom was
dismembered by successful rebels, who formed the states of Toledo, Huesca,
Saragossa, and others less eminent; and these, in their own mutual contests,
not only relaxed their natural enmity towards the Christian princes, but
sometimes sought their alliance. ^b

[Footnote a: [Note.]]

[Footnote b: Cardonne, Histoire de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne.]

     The last attack which seemed to endanger the reviving monarchy of Spain
was that of Almanzor, the illustrious vizier of Haccham II., towards the end
of the tenth century, wherein the city of Leon, and even the shrine of
Compostella, were burned to the ground.  For some ages before this transient
reflux, gradual encroachments had been made upon the Saracens, and the kingdom
originally styled of Oviedo, the seat of which was removed to Leon in 914, had
extended its boundary to the Douro, and even to the mountainous chain of the
Guadarrama.  The province of Old Castile, thus denominated, as is generally
supposed, from the castles erected while it remained a march or frontier
against the Moors, was governed by hereditary counts, elected originally by
the provincial aristocracy, and virtually independent, it seems probable, of
the kings of Leon, though commonly serving them in war as brethren of the same
faith and nation. ^c

[Footnote c: According to Roderic of Toledo, one of the earliest Spanish
historians, though not older than the beginning of the thirteenth century, the
nobles of Castile, in the reign of Froila, about the year 924, sibi et
posteris providerunt, et duos milites non de potentioribus, sed de
prudentioribus elegerunt, quos et judices statuerunt, ut dissensiones patriae
et querelantium causae suo judicio sopirentur.  l. v. c. 1. Several other
passages in the same writer prove that the counts of Castile were nearly
independent of Leon, at least from the time of Ferdinand Gonsalvo about the
middle of the tenth century.  Ex quo iste suscepit suae patriae comitatum,
cessaverunt reges Asturiarum insolescere in Castellam, et a flumine Piscorica
nihil amplius vindicarunt, l. v. c. 2.  Marina, in his Ensayo
Historico-Critico, is disposed to controvert this fact.]

     While the kings of Leon were thus occupied in recovering the western
provinces, another race of Christian princes grew up silently under the shadow
of the Pyrenean mountains.  Nothing can be more obscure than the beginnings of
those little states which were formed in Navarre and the country of Soprarbe.
They might perhaps be almost contemporaneous with the Moorish conquests.  On
both sides of the Pyrenees dwelt an aboriginal people, the last to undergo the
yoke, and who had never acquired the language, of Rome.  We know little of
these intrepid mountaineers in the dark period which elapsed under the Gothic
and Frank dynasties, till we find them cutting off the rear-guard of
Charlemagne in Roncesvalles, and maintaining at least their independence,
though seldom, like the kings of Asturias, waging offensive war against the
Saracens.  The town of Jaca, situated among long narrow valleys that intersect
the southern ridges of the Pyrenees, was the capital of a little free state,
which afterwards expanded into the monarchy of Aragon. ^d A territory rather
more extensive belonged to Navarre, the kings of which fixed their seat at
Pampelona. Biscay seems to have been divided between this kingdom and that of
Leon. The connection of Aragon or Soprarbe and Navarre was very intimate, and
they were often united under a single chief.

[Footnote d: The Fueros, or written laws of Jaca, were perhaps more ancient
than any local customary in Europe.  Alfonso III. confirms them by name of the
ancient usages of Jaca.  They prescribe the descent of lands and movables, as
well as the election of municipal magistrates.  The following law, which
enjoins the rising in arms on a sudden emergency illustrates, with a sort of
romantic wildness, the manners of a pastoral but w